Armstrong+Summary+Response+Craighead

Hello!

I was one of the people with the star on my summary/response. It is fine if you use mine as an example.

Nicole Craighead Monday, February 25, 2008

Nicole Craighead Instructor Hill LIT 241-01 February 18, 2008
 * Armstrong Summary/Response 3**

In Armstrong’s third chapter, she discusses the people of the Neolithic Period from c. 8000 to 4000 BCE. She talks of how agriculture took over as the most important source of food production for the early human beings. At first they depended mainly on hunting and fishing. Then they discovered the methods of farming they could use to produce crops, and they thought it was amazing that they could live off of the land in this way. The text states, “it led to a great spiritual awakening that gave people an entirely new understanding of themselves and their world.” They were awed by the rituals of farming and began to look at it religiously. Armstrong supports, “the new science of agriculture was approached with religious awe.”

The people of this Neolithic period noticed that there was a cycle to farming the Earth like there was a cycle to life and as the text states, “they must, therefore, respect her natural rhythms.” In life you are born, you grow up, then you die; you develop, you change, and then you complete your life. Even though they learned how to produce life in plants they knew there was destruction in their cycles, also. Many of the plants needed pruning before they could reproduce newer, better parts. When Armstrong discusses pruning plants and cutting away the dead parts to produce new, healthier parts it made me think of our human lives. At times, we need to shed away certain things, people, issues, and feelings, in our lives, in order to renew ourselves. I know there have been times in my life when I’ve done this very thing. I have had friends who just weren’t going on the same path as me and I knew I needed to cut them from my life so that I could move forward and strengthen myself, like how the text states, “the seed had to die, in order to produce grain; pruning was actually helpful to plants, and encouraged new growth.” Even though it may be hard to rid some people or items in your life, it can be what is best for you because it helps you grow. I know that getting rid of certain friends was a frightening experience, but in the long run it helped me begin a new stage in my life. The people of the Neolithic period learned from agriculture and its rituals that things had to involve some sort of death or mortality but it was not necessarily the end. Armstrong explains, “the myths and rituals of passage helped people to accept their mortality, to pass on to the next stage, and to have the courage to change and grow.” Just like I had rid parts of my life in order to refresh myself, I knew it wasn’t the end but a new phase.